MENDACIOUS MEDIA

The mendacity of the media in Australia, particularly the ABC which operates like Pravda in the former USSR, is atrocious.

The ABC must be privatised for the sake of democracy.

Consider this report on the recent juvenile detention issue:

"VIEWERS of the ABC were recently shown an emotional, one-sided Four Corners program on juvenile detention in the Northern Territory. It was frightening, but deliberately misleading. It relied on old footage and I believe the program was an abuse of the ABC’s charter and an abuse of taxpayers’ money…
The old Don Dale Juvenile Centre had been in use for many years but in August 2014, the then CLP minister, John Elferink, decided to close it. Its facilities were unacceptable…
The government renovated the unused Berrimah Prison, which became the new Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre. The move took place in early 2015…
Also in 2014, Elferink employed Michael Vita to prepare an independent report into the juvenile detention system… [B]etween $20 million to $30 million has been spent since early 2015 implementing those recommendations.
No mention of those positive steps was in the ABC report, which was based on three pieces of footage, the most alarming of which showed guards rushing an individual and throwing him to the ground — in fact, on to a mattress. That was on December 9, 2010, almost six years ago. Yet the ABC gave the impression the incident was recent and the fault of the current government. As a result of that incident, charges were laid by the DPP against a Youth Justice Officer and heard in the NT’s Court of Summary Jurisdiction in December 2013. The officer was acquitted. The NT DPP appealed to the Northern Territory Supreme Court but on December 1, 2014, Justice Barr upheld the magistrate’s decision. He said in part “the force that was used was within the parameters of the law”.
Justice Barr also noted evidence that claimed officers had been spat on 200 times.
So the ABC used footage that was six years old but did not tell its audience. It did not say the matter had been heard by two courts, which found the officer’s actions were acceptable. Nor did it explain why officers took the action they did. And there was certainly no mention that this occurred under the watch of an ALP government.
The second piece of footage was a spit hood being applied to an individual in a restraint chair. I am told this was because there had been threats of self-harm…
But it’s worth noting there are 15 officers in the NT Juvenile Correction system who are off work and 11 of those will not be able to return to full duty because of injuries received at the hands of incarcerated young people. Ask yourself this: had the ABC reported the situation accurately would we be having a royal commission?"